SUNSETS

Last night's sunset was heavy on the oranges and yellows...a startling contrast to the more frequent rose/pinks and reds. I might have thought it was a portent for a major change given the bizarre weather we've been having. It went from -8 on Thursday morning to 55 degrees and sunny...two glorious days of warm air and sunshine, bluebird skys and the promise of spring. But last night the wind came up. The wild, whipping kind of wind that breaks trees and steals unancored items off the back porch and that whistles an eery song through the cracks in the house. I love that wind but it also scares me. It is cold and cutting...brisk and killing.

Sam and Cass arrived for a visit at 3:30 in the morning. I got up to pee and they were coming up the stairs to bed. We hugged and they told me they had spun out on the driveway and their car was stuck across the driveway with its rear end stuck in the snow. They were unable to get it out and too tired to keep trying. So we all went to bed. Why did I not ask for the keys? I tossed and turned until my alarm went off at 5:15 wondering if I was going to be late for work. I woke Stephen to help me and called in at work to let them know I'd be late. We proceeded to get out the dirt, the shovels and to get the keys. The dome light was left on too and I feared a dead battery. By 6:30 I knew we'd be able to get it free so I started up my car to warm it up and ran inside to finish getting ready...mind you it is the first day of February vacation and the strong winds would mean wind holds and lots of people in the hotel. But after my shift I would be off for four days. Stephen told me I had to read a funny e-mail my sister sent, so I brought it up and read it and laughed till I cried. Then I scrolled up and saw an e-mail about my cousin Sharon. Sharon died the previous morning...a beautiful mid-age mother, wife, friend, artist and gardener who has 2 young children taken way too early by cancer.

Suddenly all my efforts to get out to work seemed so petty and superficial. I was punched in the gut with the sudden tears of a lost loved one. I bawled like a baby and it was quite clear that it would not be a day for me to try to cope with the mobs of people who had complaints about the wind holds or the hotel noise. All of the events described, happened before 7 AM. In one cold, cutting gust, my whole day turned around and my family changed shape.

The sun set on one beautiful and creative life. What was the end of a day for me was the end of her life. I am no stranger to death. I have lost many family members and had lots of practice digesting the passing of a loved one. My heart is open to both grief and joyous celebration and I allow myself the full range of my emotions. When a loved one passes, there is always a sense of surprise...no matter how long you are aware it is coming...when it comes I am stunned...startled by the permanence of the loss, by the freshness of the vulnerability and by the intensity of feeling. When I went walking in the woods with Sadie after the news, I wrapped my arms around a tree. I could feel the wind moving the highest branches and when the strong gust hit, I could hear and feel the creaking moans from deep within the tree. I pressed my aching heart against the tree and watched as the wind created a forest of waving branches and in my heart, I felt the movement and the waving goodbye to a beautiful sister who inpired with her art, shared stories with the elderly, mothered her children tenderly and grew an incredible garden full of nourishment and love. She was a very private person and for some reason, she kept extended family at a distance during her struggle. I regret that I have no memories of her for at least 3 years. I have to reach deeper. Memories of a bonfire with all of us sitting and talking under the stars...watching Larry, her husband, joyfully creating an ice rink for the kids, beers by the fire at Coombs Rd. and of course the treasure trove of childhood moments... Christmas open houses and little girls in velvet dresses...Easter Egg hunts and huge Thanksgiving gatherings ( complete with cranberry sauce in turkey shapes) with my father, mother and us 5 girls at their house with Uncle John and Aunt Mimi and their 5 kids. There were sometimes 30 sitting around the huge table. Maybe one effect of a large, opinionated family is to encourage an individual to carve space... like the cold cutting wind that artfully carves cornices of snow, and to create a niche of privacy where the primary relationship is between yourself and yourself. ..where the quiet is deep and the stillness replenishing. Where you commune only with those closest to you and seek solace in the restorative powers of nature. That was how Sharon carried out her last days...in a deeply private place.

Today, when the sun rose and cast it's pink light on the white distant mountains...my family set off for a hiking adventure. I opted to hike alone with the dog up threw the back woods and let them go...all seven of them. In the past I might have then beaten myself up and questioned my motive for being alone. Today, in honor of Sharon, I opt to share my heart with Sadie and deep nature and to write my blog. I will not give myself a raft of crap about isolating myself or finding my family too much to take. No. None of those things are true. I choose to take a walk by myself. I choose to listen to myself. I choose to write. And I choose to let solitude be my right. It is not sick to want solitude when facing the deep inner truth of yourself

and it is healthy to embrace death, trees and dear ones...here and gone. I feel like I am beginning a climb out of my old self defeating mind tapes and into the freedom and power of a new and positive reframe. My circle of guardian angels has just grown.